Otto Warmbier, the American student imprisoned by North Korea for 17 months and freed last week in a coma, died on Monday afternoon, according to a statement by his family.

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The 22-year-old University of Virginia student died at 2:20 p.m.on Monday surrounded by his loving family, said the statement, which was signed by Warmbiers parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, and released by the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where Warmbier was receiving treatment.

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North Korean authorities detained Warmbier in March 2016 as he visited the isolated, authoritarian state as a tourist. Soon afterward, the countrys high court accused him of attempting to steal a propaganda poster from his Pyongyang hotel, and sentenced him to 15 years of hard labor for crimes against the state.

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Fred and Cindy Warmbier received no information about their sons condition while he was in detention. Last Wednesday, he was medically evacuated to the U.S.; on Thursday, North Korea said that it released him “on humanitarian grounds. Doctors in Cincinnati declared that he had extensive loss of brain tissue, and was in a state of unresponsive wakefulness.

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Unfortunately, the awful torturous mistreatment our son received at the hands of the North Koreans ensured that no other outcome was possible beyond the sad one we experienced today, said the Warmbiers statement.

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Although we would never hear his voice again, within a day the countenance of his face changed he was at peace, it continued. He was home and we believe he could sense that.

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Pyongyang said Warmbier fell into a coma after he contracted botulism and took a sleeping pill soon after his sentencing. Yet U.S. doctors have cast doubt on the explanation, and Warmbiers parents lashed out at the isolated state.

The reasons for Warmbiers detention, the cause of his coma, and the circumstances of his release remain unclear.

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It would be easy at a moment like this to focus on all that we lost future time that wont be spent with a warm, engaging, brilliant young man whose curiosity and enthusiasm for life knew no bounds, the Warmbier family said in the Monday statement. But we choose to focus on the time we were given to be with this remarkable person. You can tell from the outpouring of emotion from the communities that he touched Wyoming, Ohio, and the University of Virginia to name just two that the love for Otto went well beyond his immediate family.